The Last Poem
by Kang Xiu
Summary: Jean Prouvaire is at the barricade. With nothing to do but wait, he begins to write. Once the poem has written itself, he must find someone to give it to. **Complete**
1. The Writing

Disclaimer: Kanashimi: Korin doesn't even technically own the computer. Let's please not assume that Jehan Prouvaire could be hers.  
  
The Last Poem  
  
[The sun will return  
Our sun will emerge  
We shall not die in shadows  
The barricade will not fall to the night]  
  
"Jean, are you all right?"  
  
"Fine, just a little sad. Don't worry about me, Courfeyrac. I can still hold a gun."  
  
[The stars shine with a cold glow  
Silver painted against deep blackness  
Silver sand scattered in the black ink  
Silver moons swimming in black water]  
  
The poet suddenly buried his face in his hands, trembling, but not crying. He looked strangely vulnerable, strangely unwrapped. He was silhouetted clearly against the deeper darkness of the night.  
  
The leader noticed his shaking, and walked to where he sat, concern showing on his beautiful, proud face.   
  
"Jean, are you all right?"  
  
[But the stars will fade into their dark  
And the dawn will carry away the dark  
And the sun will wash away the dark  
And golden light will touch the corners of the sky]  
  
"I'm fine, I'm fine, Enjolras. I just...I just wish it were light. I don't like this nighttime. It's too dark. It's too deep, too far, too reaching." The poet closed his eyes and felt the still air around him  
  
"I assure you that it will be morning soon, Prouvaire. I...I promise," the leader added with uncharacteristic gentleness for the poet who was no more than a boy, who had too many verses still unwritten to give himself to death.  
  
[And then the sun will be radiant  
And the sky will be lit within  
And the barricade where we wait will be bathed with light  
And we will die with the sun upon us]  
  
The poet sat straighter, and nodded, looking into the black. His eyes shone ever so slightly as he watched his fellow students on the barricades, loading guns, making ready.   
  
The leader returned to his post, to watch beyond the barricades, to watch the things outside the fortress. He, too, was making ready.  
  
[The return of the day shall revive us  
Fear shall not consume us  
No trace of doubt: we fight for what is truth  
And we shall raise our flag to the sun]   
  
"No one will ever read my last poem, Enjolras," the poet told the unfathomable shadows that stood between himself and the leader.  
  
But no one heard him.  
  
[The sun will return  
Our sun will emerge  
We shall not die in shadows  
The barricade will not fall to the night] 


	2. The Giving

Disclaimer: Kanashimi: Prouvaire is still not Korin's, neither is Enjolras. A second chapter, by God!  
  
The Last Poem  
  
"Enjolras?" The poet spoke softly, as if afraid. He had come to stand beside the leader, the fiercely beautiful man guarding a flag on a barricade which had not yet fallen.  
  
"Jean? What is it?"  
  
"I..." he faltered, "I was wondering if you would...keep something for me..."  
  
"What do you mean, Prouvaire?" The leader's words were short, impatient. He looked over his fortress of tables and chairs into the still street.  
  
Quickly, suddenly, as though he had made up his mind, the poet took from his pocket a paper, a folded paper, an old, worn piece of parchment. The ink was dried, and the poet's soft, curled handwriting bloomed onto the page.  
  
"This is my last poem. I am...I do not wish to have it, when I die. I want to give it up. If you would keep it for me, I...I would be...it would please me greatly," he finished, aware of how strange and incoherent his request was.  
  
The leader gave him a look that confirmed this. "Why me?" he questioned. "Why not Pontmercy, who dreams, as you do? Why not Combeferre, who appreciates such things more than I? Why, of all the men here tonight, have you chosen me?"  
  
But the poet could not explain his strange choice. He only felt that his leader was the man that he must give the paper to. Carefully, he looked up to the golden-haired warrior. Softly, he told him, "Because it must be you. The poem...it is for you."  
  
The leader looked startled, but upon hearing this, he reached out for the paper. "Then I will carry it. I will keep it. As you wish me to, Prouvaire."  
  
The poet gave it up with a readiness he could not explain. "Read it if you desire, or fold it away un-examined. It is yours."  
  
The leader rested a hand upon the poet's shoulder, looking deeply at him, reading him, opening his soul as though it were a book or layered manuscript.   
  
He could not understand what he read, though he studied for a long time, struggling to comprehend the spirit. At last he took his hand away, and slipped the tattered page of the poet's last writing into his pocket.   
  
He turned away, and once again his hand curled around the rod of the vast red flag he flew openly into the creeping dawn. As his fingers touched the familiar warmth of the wood where he had before held it, he spoke with decisiveness: "It will stay with me, Jehan. I will carry it even after it has become impossible to make out as my blood spills over it. If it is mine, it is Patria's also, and no one saving her shall read it."  
  
The poet smiled gently. "As you have said, Enjolras."   
  
Then he returned to his place, watching the leader close his eyes and offer his face defiantly to the morning's pale sun as it danced over him.   
  
"My last poem belongs to Patria. Yes...this is what was to have been done with it. My poetry, as my life, now belongs to my country. Vive la France."  
  
The leader, still with his eyes closed, brought one hand down to cover the pocket where the single page now rested. "Vive la France." 


	3. The Keeping

Disclaimer: Kanashimi: As before, Korin does not own either Prouvaire, Enjolras, or Grantaire, and most likely she never will.  
  
The Last Poem  
  
The poet looked around himself, up at the high walls made of chairs, tables, made of the streets and the cafés. He looked around himself and took everything in, for he knew well that it was the last time that he could do so. He looked straight ahead then, into the second wall, the one he could not escape, the wall of muskets.   
  
He lifted his face fearlessly, his eyes without a trace of fright or apprehension. His hand went clenched to his heart. His voice steady and clear, he called, "Vive la future! Vive la France!"   
  
At that moment the guns were fired, and the poet choked as blood poured from his body to the streets he had helped to defend. He fell to those same streets and felt himself aching, but made no move to struggle to his feet, for he would never rise again.   
  
Softly, his voice as failing as his strength, he murmured, "My poem..." Then he closed his eyes, and let himself drift away, his spirit free.  
  
~~~   
  
"Vive la Republique!"  
  
The leader watched with strange calm as the drunkard crossed the room and stood beside him. He looked down at the man and his eyes softened.   
  
He was unwounded but still blood-spattered, and he held himself royally, face proud and even more beautiful than when he stood beside his flag. He glowed with his power, and was intimidating to both the men who dared to extinguish his flame and the man who dared to share the pain of extinguishing.   
  
The drunkard looked up to him, fearful of the radiance, but yet with a great trust and hope. He, too, was unwounded, but this was because he had not fought. He took a deep breath and faced back to the men.  
  
"Kill two birds with one stone!"  
  
Then his gaze returned to the leader. Gently, timidly, he asked him, "If you don't mind?"  
  
The leader smiled. The smile caused his glow to become even stronger, his person to light up, his spirit to become frightening and more than human.   
  
His hand sought the other man's and he held it, but even as he did so, the hand not taken crept to his pocket and closed upon a paper that contained twenty-four lines written with black ink and curling careful handwriting.   
  
His lips began to form the few words, "I keep it, Jehan," but as they did, the shots rang out. He fell against the wall, and felt blood running down from his throat, from his chest, covering him, creeping into his pockets and the folds in his shirt. He felt the blood that had run in him for twenty-two years leaving him. He felt the life that had sustained him for twenty-two years dying. He felt the man who had stood beside him for only a few minutes, only a little while, collapsing at his feet. A single tear spilled down his cheek, leaving a trail.  
  
And then his hand felt the wet redness consuming his paper, felt it tear. He felt the words that the poet had given him and his love dissolving in his own crimson life.   
  
He felt all these things in suddenness, in little time, and he felt also that it was over, that all his dreams and his hopes, that all of the things that had given him this power, that everything he had believed in and inspired, that the cause he had given his life to, were over.  
  
Still he felt no sorrow, nothing, but a mysterious sort of satisfaction. His fingers, nearly lifeless, touched the ruined pieces of what was once a poem that no one would now read. Now it belonged solely to him and to his Patria. Now the last poem was gone, but kept forever.  
  
Owari ~End 


End file.
